Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side.
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Exploring the Universe
with Andrew Fraknoi
The giant planet Jupiter is shown in remarkable detail from the giant James Webb Space Telescope. The powerful northern and southern lights are easily seen in this image.
August 24, 2022
The James Webb Space Telescope has taken an intriguing image of a cosmic accident victim — a large galaxy that was hit directly in its center by a smaller neighbor. Called the Cartwheel Galaxy because of its appearance, this distant grouping of billions of stars was hit by a cosmic bullet — small spiral galaxy that pushed right through it hundreds of millions of years ago. (The “bullet” galaxy …
August 2, 2022
Soon after the scientists working with the Webb telescope released their gorgeous images for public consumption, they also started making available some of the images that were gathered as engineers checked the instruments and systems aboard the spacecraft that is the telescope. It turns out, one of set of these images held a pleasant surprise. Few people know that the planet Saturn is not the only world with a …
July 26, 2022
The James Webb Space Telescope reveals two stars at the center of a nebula that is a kind of death shroud around them.
July 18, 2022
We are looking at a brand new picture of five galaxies (islands of billions of stars), four of which actually hang out in space together. The fifth one, the one to the left, is actually in the foreground — it is 39 million light-years from us, while the other four are about 300 million light-years away. The whole group is known as Stephan’s Quintet, after French astronomer Edouard Stephan, …
July 15, 2022
Among the new James Webb Space Telescope images just released is this stunning view of a region where new stars and planets are forming — a kind of “star nursery” or “star womb.” The thick region of gas and dust is seen in browns and reds in the bottom part of the picture. The bluish “steam” that seems to be coming off upward is the glow of much thinner …
July 13, 2022
NASA has released the first image from the Webb Telescope and Einstein would be very pleased. The image shows a dense cluster of galaxies whose strong gravity warps the space around them, just as Einstein predicted in his general theory of relativity. As a result of that warping, the faint light of other galaxies that lie far BEHIND the cluster is intensified and pulled into arcs. The cluster of …
July 11, 2022
Recently, I was a guest on the Forum talk show on the San Francisco Bay Area public radio station, KQED, and got a chance to talk about astronomy news, what can be seen in the sky this summer, and the anticipation we all feel waiting for the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. You can hear the 15-minute interview at: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101889700/celestial-events-abound-in-julys-night-skies Among the news items we discussed …
July 7, 2022
The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a wonderful new image of a huge cluster of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. Called Liller 1, after astronomer William Liller who discovered it, this group of more than a million stars is located in the direction of our Galaxy’s center. That’s a dusty region, from which regular light is absorbed. much as light from the city center on a smoggy day …
June 4, 2022
Some specialists in comet and meteor science are predicting that we COULD have a new, never-before-seen meteor shower on the night of Monday March 30th. (A meteor shower is when you can see a number of shooting stars in the dark sky over time.) Here is the full story. Meteor showers happen when an old comet (a chunk of dirty ice left over from the formation of our solar …
May 27, 2022
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